Reaching Out. for Reform ; Calls for Change Come from Catholics in the US and around the World

Article excerpt

On Good Friday last week, several hundred Roman Catholics
gathered outside Boston's Cathedral of the Holy Cross in a prayer
service for the victims of clergy sexual abuse. It was the first
time - more than 15 years after a major abuse case broke in the
media - that lay Catholics had ever publicly reached out to this
group.

And on Monday nights for the past two months, parishioners from
St. John the Evangelist Church in Wellesley, Mass., have gathered
with Catholics from other parishes to build consensus for change in
the church. Calling themselves Voice of the Faithful, they hope to
convene a "Continental Congress of Catholics" later this year to
open the way to sharing actively in church governance.

As instances of mishandling of abuse allegations continue to
surface across the United States, some people in the pews are
transforming their anguish into a longterm commitment to reform.
Many Catholics say the sex-abuse scandal is a failure not just of
individual clerics but of a hierarchy cloaked in secrecy and too
removed from people's lives.

Along with a full response to the victims, they are calling for a
greater lay voice in church decisionmaking and a fresh look at
issues of the priesthood.

Their goals sound radical for the Catholic Church, but those
encouraging reform see themselves as reviving the vision of the
Second Vatican Council of the

1960s, which said the church resides in all the people of God.
Their grassroots initiatives reflect attitudes not only of a
majority of American Catholics, but also those in countries around
the globe - including traditionally Catholic nations like Ireland
and Spain.

Some traditionalists charge that liberals are attempting to take
advantage of the crisis for their own activist purposes.

"A lot of people are trying to make ideological hay out of this
crisis," says George Weigel, author of "Witness to Hope," a
biography of Pope John Paul II. "Some of these calls for what
amounts to the protestantizing of the Catholic church are the result
of people on an ideological joy ride."

But while some initiatives do come from the ranks of long-time
activists, many of those speaking up are engaging for the first
time. "We are completely mainstream Catholics - we are almost all
new to this," says Jim Muller, a doctor who is a leader of Voice of
the Faithful.

An international movement

Surveys have long shown that American Catholics favor more
participatory decisionmaking in the church. According to a 1999
special report of the National Catholic Reporter, two-thirds want
more democracy at the parish level, 60 percent favor more at the
diocesan level, and 55 percent want participatory decisionmaking at
the Vatican.

Such views have often led to accusations that Americans are out
of step with the rest of the church. But a 1996 study of attitudes
toward reform in seven countries showed remarkable consistency.

A majority in every country polled - from Poland to Italy to the
Philippines - supported the election of bishops. The countries with
the most reform-minded Catholics on all issues were Germany, Spain,
and Ireland. Some 80 percent of Spanish and Irish Catholics, for
example, favor married priests and about 70 percent supported
ordination of women.

Mandatory celibacy has surfaced nationally as an issue, not
because it is seen as a cause of sex abuse, but because it narrows
the pool of priesthood candidates and affects church culture.

"The church is limited to drawing from the thinnest slice of the
population for ... its most important ministry," says the Rev.
Richard McBrien, professor of theology at Notre Dame. Today,
Catholics have climbed the economic ladder and have more employment
options than in the past, - and celibacy no longer has the same
cultural support. One result, he says, is that some clerics haven't
really chosen celibacy, but just accepted it as a condition of being
a priest. …